Lauren Child

Life

Lauren Child was born in 1965 and was raised in Marlborough, Wiltshire, where her father led the art department at Marlborough College and her mother taught primary school. Helen was the middle child of three daughters. She later changed her first name to Lauren. She attended St John's School and, from 16, Marlborough College. She studied Art briefly at Manchester Polytechnic and later at City and Guilds of London Art School. She started her own company, Chandeliers for the People, making lampshades. Between 1998 and 2003 she worked for the design agency Big Fish and includes its founder Perry Haydn Taylor in the dedications of her books.

Two picture books both written and illustrated by Child were published in 1999, and also issued in the U.S. within the year: I Want a Pet! and Clarice Bean, That's Me. The latter, published by Orchard Books, inaugurated the Clarice Bean series, was a highly commended runner-up for the Greenaway Medal, and made the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize shortlist. Next year she won the Greenaway Medal for the first Charlie and Lola book, I Will Not Ever, NEVER Eat a Tomato. Her timing was good, for a bequest by Colin Mears had provided a £5,000 cash prize to supplement the medal beginning that year. She won a second Smarties Prize in 2002 for That Pesky Rat, which was commended for the Greenaway too. In the same year she wrote her first children's novel, Utterly Me, Clarice Bean, one of 39 books nominated by the librarians for the Carnegie Medal. Her second novel in this series, Clarice Bean Spells Trouble was shortlisted for the 2005 British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year. The third novel, Clarice Bean, Don't Look Now was published in 2007.

Child's illustrations contain different media including magazine cuttings, collage, material and photography as well as traditional watercolours. She is the illustrator of the Definitely Daisy series by Jenny Oldfield.

A television series based on her Charlie and Lola books was made by Tiger Aspect for CBeebies, on which Child was an Associate Producer. Three series of 26 episodes and two specials were made. Charlie and Lola has been sold throughout the world, and won BAFTAs in 2007 for Best children's Television Show and Best Script.

She was announced as the new Children's Laureate for the UK on 7 June 2017 at a ceremony at Hull City Hall.

Charlie and Lola

Charlie and Lola is a series of picture books made by Lauren Child and now is a children's TV show. It is recommended for children 2–5 years of age. Each half-hour format show contains two segments with different plots, each starting off with Charlie saying, "I have this little sister, Lola. She is small and very funny." Charlie was based on her boyfriend who used to wear shirts just like Charlie's, but with his name on it. Lola was based on a pixie looking girl Lauren saw on a train who was with her parents, a young couple, and kept bombarding them with questions. Soren Lorensen was based on Lauren's boyfriend's sister's "better" imaginary brother, and so Soren Lorensen became Lola's imaginary friend.

Clarice Bean

Clarice Bean is also a picture book and novel series by Lauren Child that is for children/young teenagers. Her full name is Clarice Bean Tuesday. She is best friends with Betty P Moody, and Karl Wrenbury is another friend of hers. Clarice Bean is a fan of a book series called Ruby Redfort (Lauren Child is writing a series for Ruby Redfort, started in 2011 ), enemies with Grace Grapello and Mrs Wilberton (her teacher) and is a not a very good speller and she day-dreams a lot. Her family consists of her mum, dad, younger brother Minal Cricket, older sister Marcie, her even older brother Kurt, her grandad and her granny who lives in America and who phones regularly. Those books are:

Ruby Redfort series

In 2009, Child signed a new six-book deal with HarperCollins for the release of her "Ruby Redfort" series. Ruby Redfort, undercover agent and mystery solver, is familiar to Lauren's readers as Clarice Bean's favourite literary character.

Ruby is a genius code-cracker, a daring detective, and a gadget-laden special agent who just happens to be a thirteen-year-old girl. She and her slick side-kick butler, Hitch, foil crimes and get into loads of scrapes with evil villains, but they’re always ice-cool in a crisis.

The first book in the series, Ruby Redfort: Look Into My Eyes was released in September 2011 in hard back, with the paper back version released in July 2012.

The secret codes used in the book were developed by Lauren and mathematician Marcus du Sautoy. The main codes in all five books are based around senses. The first book: sight, the second book: hearing, the third book: smell, the fourth being touch and the fifth being taste.

A second Ruby book, Ruby Redfort, Take Your Last Breath was followed by a third, Catch Your Death. A fourth Ruby novel, Feel the Fear was released on 18 November 2014. A fifth book was released on 9 November 2015 titled Pick Your Poison. The sixth and final book, Blink and You Die, was released in October 2016.

The first handbook in the Ruby Redfort series is Hang in There Bozo: The Ruby Redfort Emergency Survival Guide for Some Tricky Predicaments.

As writer and illustrator

As writer

As illustrator

Child was the cover artist for all three volumes and the author of at least the first volume's introduction.

Awards and honours

Child was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.

Awards as a writer:

Awards as an illustrator: